gamma world Sooner Dead

by Mel Odom

  Hella crossed to her. “Colleen.”

  The woman ignored her.

  “Colleen, you can’t do this. It’s not going to work.”

  “It will work.”

  “No. It won’t. The fractoids are joined. They’re two parts of a whole. If one of them dies, the other will too.”

  Still holding her daughter’s hands, Colleen glared at Hella. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. You’ve been inside my mind. Take a look for yourself.”

  “I won’t trust you. You’ll lie.”

  “Look.” Slowly Hella gripped the woman’s elbow. “See if I’m lying to you. I would help you if I could, but this way you’re only going to watch your daughter die and kill Scatter in the process. Both of them don’t have to die.”

  Ocastya stood beside Colleen for a moment, and Hella thought the fractoid was going to stab the woman. Instead Ocastya’s gaze rested on the feverish girl. “My mate and I wanted to have children. We never had the opportunity.” She shifted her attention to Colleen. “I am sorry for your loss, but I will not lose my mate. If you do not free him, you will soon join your daughter in death.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Colleen.” Hella pulled on the woman, turning her attention from her child and Ocastya. “Trust me. I’m sorry but we’re telling you the truth. This isn’t going to work. You can’t save your daughter by using Scatter that way.”

  Colleen wrapped her hand around one of Hella’s. Immediately a bright, hot pain slashed through Hella’s mind. At first she thought Colleen was mentally attacking her; then she realized that the woman had just blown through her defenses in an effort to get to the truth. The pain subsided slightly, and Hella felt Colleen rifling through her thoughts.

  A moment later Colleen pulled away. “No. No. I was supposed to be able to save Alice. That’s why I dreamed about the fractoids. I used my precog power to find a way to save Alice. That’s why I saw them entering our world. I saw myself saving her. This can’t be true.”

  Ocastya grabbed the woman’s arm and shook her. “Save my mate. Do it now, and you can still be with your daughter in her final moments.”

  The declaration was cold and vicious, but Hella couldn’t fault Ocastya. If Stampede’s life had hung in the balance, Hella knew she would have been just as focused and driven.

  Angrily Ocastya shook Colleen and pushed her toward the computer. “Do it now.”

  Trembling, overcome with pain and sorrow, Colleen tapped commands on the keyboard. Ocastya stood at her side, watching the scrolling numbers, letters, and symbols on the computer monitors.

  Grimly, Hella split her attention among the computer screen, the security monitors, and Scatter. She didn’t know how any of it would end. Alice’s breathing thickened and became more troubled. Hella hated standing there, knowing she was listening to the little girl’s last moments. She’d heard people die before, had held some of them in her arms, but Alice would leave her marked forever.

  “There.” Colleen tried to speak more but she couldn’t. She pulled away from Ocastya’s grip and returned to the hospital bed. She took her daughter’s limp hand in hers.

  In the security images, Riley led the hardshells down the stairwell. Others took a nearby elevator that was still working.

  Scatter moved suddenly then reached up and took the wires in one hand to rip them free. He stood and embraced Ocastya.

  Ocastya looked at him. The high-pitched machine language filled the air.

  Scatter wound his fingers in those of his mate. The machine language passed back and forth between them so loud and so piercing that Hella wanted to plug her ears. She concentrated on the security images.

  Riley and his team had reached the fourth-floor landing.

  Hella looked at Stampede as she morphed her hands into weapons. “They’re here.”

  Stampede’s ears twitched as he snorted angrily. “We played this one too close, Red. My fault.” He readied his rifle.

  “You can apologize after we get out of here.” Hella took a deep breath. “We’re still getting out of here, right?”

  An evil grin spread across Stampede’s face. “Yeah.” He held up the remote control for the satchel charges they’d left in the fourth-floor landing. “Button up.”

  Hella pulled a face mask from her chest pouch and put it on. The mask filtered out the smoke and pepper gas in the satchel charges.

  “Do you know where Pardot is?”

  A quick check of the security images showed Pardot’s location on the third-floor landing. “One floor above. He’s in the stairwell.”

  Stampede looked at her. “Don’t hesitate, Red. Those guys would have killed us if they had the chance.”

  “I know.”

  “No mercy.”

  “I know.”

  “And don’t make me come after you.”

  Hella blew out a breath.

  “Go!” Stampede pressed the remote control. The satchel charges blew immediately, filling the hallway with thunder, screams, and flying body parts.

  Hella whipped around the doorway and ran into the maelstrom of death. The satchels had been packed with flash-bangs that disrupted the hardshells’ vid and aud feeds as well. A small EMP explosive detonated on the second wave, flashing a system-killing pulse that threw the hardshells’ musculature off.

  The hardshells struggled to stay on their feet, fighting against systems that no longer supported them or moved the way they wanted to. That was the primary reason Stampede didn’t embrace technology. In a heartbeat cybernetic infrastructures and smart programs could be disrupted.

  Hella’s nanobots shivered, and she feared that she would be affected as well.

  “Concentrate, Hella.” Scatter’s voice echoed inside her skull. “Your nanobots are not like those systems in the hardshells. Yours are part of you; they are tied to you in ways those men in those suits will never know. You are stronger, faster, and better than any of them. You know what your body is supposed to be like. This is just like the burn scarring you recovered from.”

  Pistols blazing in front of her, bullets punching into and throwing the hardshells, Hella concentrated on the rhythm Scatter had taught her. With every rapid step, even at the speed she was moving, her body grew more controlled. She was a blur, getting faster, getting more sure-footed. And she was death for every hardshell in the hallway who lifted a weapon in her direction.

  The armor-piercing rounds she created for the assault took longer to form, but they were there when she needed them. They ripped through the hardshells.

  In the stairwell, operating at a speed she’d never before reached, she planted her left weapon in the face of a man who managed to intercept her by design or by accident. The bullets ripped him away, and blood misted her vision.

  She leaped over a dead man lying at the bottom of the steps, avoided another man who reached for her, and brought her knee up into the man’s crotch. Right before impact, she imagined a protective layer of armor over her knee, and it was there. Instead of injuring herself on the hardshell, her knee caved in the armor and knocked the man away.

  Morphing her left weapon back into a hand, she grabbed another man as she went up the stairs and levered him across her hip into freefall between the stairwells. He fell another floor and lay still. By then she had continued advancing, and her hand was a weapon again.

  She head-butted another man and bulled him back with her speed. Then she whirled out of his embrace, weapons flared out and tracking targets on the stairwell. She ran toward the wall, stepped onto a fallen man, and ran up onto the wall. Hurling herself into the air, she flipped and fired ceaselessly. When she landed on her feet, she was behind Pardot.

  Wrapping her left arm under Pardot’s chin and pressing hard against his neck, Hella held the muzzles of her right weapon against Pardot’s head.

  In front of and around her, hardshells struggled to get to their feet and level their weapons at her.

  Hella pulled Pardot backward with her till she reached the wa
ll. She shook the small man viciously. “Tell them to put their weapons down, or I’m going to kill you.”

  Dazed, shaking in fright, Pardot raised his hands. “Put down your weapons! Put them down!”

  The blank faceplates on the hardshells didn’t show any emotions, but Hella read the anger and fear in the men’s body language. They wanted her dead, and her life briefly swayed on the shifting emotions. She and Stampede knew if they couldn’t get Scatter and get gone without a confrontation, the stairwell was the best hope they had of gaining the upper hand. It had been an all-or-nothing risk, but it was something they had used before. Against a group controlled by someone, it would work, not against a disorganized gang.

  But a group was an animal, every bit as wild and unpredictable as any creature living in the forest. The only law an animal obeyed was one for survival.

  “Put your weapons down! I order you to do as she says!”

  From below, leaking blood down his right side, Riley climbed the stairs and forced his way to the front of the group. He held his rifle in both hands, taking aim at Hella.

  “Are we okay out there?” Stampede’s voice was loud enough to carry into the stairwell from the laboratory.

  “Not sure yet.” Hella held her fright in check. She wished she had a faceplate like those on the hardshells. Her face grew itchy, and she felt the nanobots stirring beneath her skin. Her reflection showed in Riley’s face shield. As she watched, metal plates formed around her face and created a shield the color of her hair. She didn’t know if it was bulletproof, but it looked thick enough. Her astonishment numbed her for just an instant; then she focused on survival. “Got a few guys up here who seem to be determined to hang on to their weps.”

  “Riley.”

  Riley ignored Stampede.

  “Riley.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you care about Hella. Maybe that’s enough for you. If it’s not, it’s gonna play out like this: if you kill her, I’ve got a secondary charge in that stairwell that will kill everyone.”

  Riley never flickered. His rifle remained unwavering.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the deal. The next move is yours.”

  Pardot swallowed hard and Hella felt the effort against the inside of her arm. “I told you to put your weapon down.”

  “You got my men killed, you pompous little rat.” Riley’s voice was thick with emotion. He waved one hand at the dead lying around him. Only four hardshells seemed capable of standing. A few others moved on the floor. “I told you not to play with these people. I told you I wanted to take this insertion slowly. But you were in a hurry.”

  “Put your weapon down, Captain. You have your instructions.” Pardot almost had that commanding sneer back, as if he were the one calling the shots.

  “Yeah. I guess I do.” Slowly Riley lowered his rifle to the floor. Then he stepped forward. “Stampede, if we let you go—”

  “You’re not letting us go; we’re letting you go.”

  “Sure. Do you care if Pardot comes out of this in one piece?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” Riley popped the blade from his forearm and punched it through Pardot’s skull. The exo whirred out of control. Pardot managed one shrill scream. “Hella’s fine.”

  “Hella?”

  Stepping away from Pardot, Hella let the man fall, not believing what had just happened. “I’m fine.” She trained her weapons on Riley, aware of the blood that dripped across her face shield and her blouse.

  “Bring them down.”

  The hardshells lined up at her command. They managed to pick up three men who were still alive in the tangle of dead. Then she escorted them down to the lab.

  Riley and the other guards sat against one wall in the lab. The only sounds in the room were the cries of the wounded and the plaintive mewling of Alice Trammell as she succumbed to her disease. Colleen watched helplessly, crying silently as her daughter lost her battle.

  Scatter and Ocastya talked in their language, and Hella sensed they were emotionally affected. They never looked away from Alice. Finally Scatter broke off and approached Colleen. “There is something we might be able to do.”

  Colleen looked up at them, her eyes hollow and empty. “What?”

  “Possibly we can save her. Will you allow us to try?”

  “Yes. Whatever you need.”

  Scatter stood on one side of the bed. Ocastya stood on the other. Each of them put one hand on Alice’s head, and they held hands. “Saving her body is impossible. The disease has taken that from her. But we may be able to save that part of your daughter that makes her the person you know.”

  Colleen’s tears rolled down her face.

  A lump formed in the back of Hella’s throat, and she couldn’t swallow it down. Tears slid down her face as well.

  Scatter and Ocastya stood still as statues, their bodies gleaming. Then golden light pulsed along their skins. Alice’s pain-filled cries silenced, and she seemed to settle into a deeper sleep. For a moment Hella thought the little girl had perished. Then she saw a pulse beating at the hollow of her throat.

  Ocastya and Scatter raised their joined hands over the little girl, and a stream of silver metal gleamed as it spun down and poured over Alice. In the space of a drawn breath, the liquid metal formed a shell over the girl. Then the medical machines screamed alerts as her heart stopped and her struggling respiration ceased.

  “No!” Colleen stepped forward.

  At the same time, Scatter took his hand from Alice’s head and held it out. “Alice?”

  Incredibly the girl’s hand lifted. Only it wasn’t her hand. It was the silver metal shell. She gripped Scatter’s hand in her two-dimensional hand and sat up. The silver replica of the girl was perfect in every way, but she rose off her dead body.

  Alice looked down at her torso and ran her free hand along her body. She looked up at Colleen. “Mommy?”

  “Alice.” Colleen took her daughter’s hand. “Alice? Can you hear me?”

  “I can.” Alice smiled and the silvery expression was childlike and innocent. “My stomach doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  As Hella watched, the girl’s body thickened and filled in as the fragments replicated themselves. Ocastya and Scatter kept her hands on the girl’s shoulders, and Hella was certain they were adding to Alice’s body, giving to her from themselves. Hella wept unashamedly.

  EPILOGUE

  I guess Trazall lit a shuck.” Stampede stood outside the mil-plex and glared down over the forest farther down the mountain.

  “You keep standing there, maybe he’ll spot you and have one of his snipers take you out.”

  Stampede shifted his glare over to Hella. “If they were out here, I’d know it.”

  Hella wanted to be away from the place. Death clung to it. Corpses lay everywhere. She’d already stripped as much gear and supplies as she dared. Daisy was packed heavy and shifted under the burden. She wouldn’t have to carry it far, though. They could trade along the nearest road or unload it at a trade post.

  Only a few meters away, Alice took joy in her new mobility. She’d been bedridden for more than a year with her illness. Except for the silver coloration, she looked like a little girl.

  “Has Scatter told Trammell that her daughter is going to have to stay with them?”

  Hella nodded. “Yeah. She didn’t sound too surprised. I think she had that figured after learning about the bond between Scatter and Ocastya.”

  Stampede shifted his rifle over his shoulder. “What’s Trammell going to do?”

  “Go with them.”

  “And where are they going to go?”

  “I was going to talk to you about that.”

  Stampede grimaced. “We travel faster alone, Red. You know that.”

  “I do. I was thinking they could come with us till they find a place of their own.”

  “Might be hard for them to trust Trammell.”

  “None of them ha
ve a choice, not if they want to keep Alice happy.”

  “They didn’t have to take on that burden or risk losing themselves saving her.”

  Hella looked over at Stampede and smiled. “I’ve known a few people that didn’t turn away from that burden when it came up. We risked a lot coming here to help Scatter and Ocastya.”

  Stampede’s ears twitched. “We got lucky.”

  “Only people who put it all out there on the line get lucky. I seem to recall somebody telling me that.”

  “Just means stupidity rubs off.” Stampede nodded at Riley, who was approaching them. “Looks like you got company.” He hesitated. “Whatever you decide, Red, you know I love you.” Before Hella could ask him what he meant, Stampede walked away.

  Hella started to go after him, but Riley called out to her. He stopped in front of her, and his faceplate popped open. Bruises showed on his face, proving he’d gotten pretty rattled inside the hardshell when the explosions had gone off in the stairwell.

  “Dr. Trammell says you’re about to leave.”

  Hella nodded. “We are.”

  “About that.” Riley cleared his throat. “Look, I know we’ve been through a lot getting here, but I may never be this way again.”

  Thinking about that possibility made Hella’s heart ache more than she thought it would.

  “I wanted to ask you, before you left and before the zeppelin we’ve sent for arrives, if you wanted to come with me.”

  Excitement flared through Hella. Over the past several days, her imagination had toyed with that idea.

  “I mean, it’s probably strange after everything that’s happened, but I want you to know that I wouldn’t have allowed Pardot to kill you. There was a line there, and I wouldn’t have crossed it. I hope you know that.”

  Looking at Riley’s handsome face, Hella believed that was the truth. But she knew the decision could just as easily have gone the other way.

  “You should see our world, Hella.” Riley spoke low and excited. “It’s a real civilization. We have roads, homes, plenty to eat. I would love to show it to you.” Before she knew what he was going to do, he leaned in and kissed her. His lips felt hot and demanding against hers. She didn’t break contact for a while. She’d never been kissed before and wanted to know what it was like.